About PBCIP

Our Mission & Story

PBCIP and its members are building a vibrant neighborhood in Parkside. Through advocacy, collaboration and commitment, PBCIP supports quality education, mixed income housing and commercial development, guided by sustainable practices to achieve a green community.

The Beginning

Nearly 20 years ago, a group of residents fighting the decline they saw in Parkside organized a single anti-drug march. The march was successful and led to a community wide meeting to explore long term solutions to neighborhood blight. The meeting, in turn, led to the formation of PBCIP as a 501C3 non-profit organization which for most of its existence was run solely by volunteers from the neighborhood.

Today, the organization takes a holistic approach by integrating commercial revitalization, housing and quality-of-life initiatives in order to restore, rather than replace, the neighborhood. PBCIP’s housing effort reached a milestone in 2005 when, for the first time, the organization offered market rate homes for sale, in response to demand from upwardly mobile professionals seeking to live in Parkside.

Activities for a Strong Sense of Community

PBCIP is a membership-based organization that takes very seriously its founding principal of neighborhood-driven change. PBCIP has a membership of approximately 120 residents and stakeholders. In addition, the organization holds monthly community-wide meetings, organizes the Haddon Avenue Street Festival, which attracts a crowd from all over Camden and surrounding towns, and coordinates a food basket drive, filling 50 Christmas baskets with turkeys and all that is needed for a holiday meal. Under the direction of PBCIP, the Parkside Block Captains Network provides a connection to the community for each resident in the neighborhood's 55 blocks. Block captains disseminate information, serve as a resource to solve problems and mobilize residents to address problems and work for change in the neighborhood.